1st timer

I am about to start my first grow , i was wondering how many lum's of light i need for each square foot. if anyone could help me out here. im on a low budget but managable. any tips on lighting would help

First grow starting now

Using 4 -T12 40 watt bulbs
4 - 26 watt CFL's 6500k
1-42 watt CFL 2700k
Tin Foil for reflection on walls.
6 inch fan for air movement and root growth

4 foot wide by 4 1/2 foot tall by 2 1/2 feet depth, a 8sq growing area inside

Random bag seeds from 3 batch of middies.
Organic Poting soil
Nuts will be Bone meal.

pics. coming in the next day or so


Any Suggestions or Advice would be apperciated.

try to get at least 3000 lumens per foot most people go alot more. get rid of the tinfoil and use white paint

tin foil cause to much heat or something? white paint reflect better?


edit---- also atm i have 4300 lumens Sqft atm aiming for 5500 before i start my actual veg


thanks for reply

LimitedTimer said:

tin foil cause to much heat or something? white paint reflect better?


edit---- also atm i have 4300 lumens Sqft atm aiming for 5500 before i start my actual veg


thanks for reply

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Tin foil can create hot spot reflections so that can be very dangerous to you and your plants White paint still reflects the light but also diffuses it so the reflection covers a larger area.

I believe I read somewhere that the minimum lumens per sq ft is like 2500. The main problem with figuring out your real lumen's per sq ft is that the available light to your plant is reduced for every few inches your plant is away from the CFL. If that makes any sense.

I do believe that the 2500 lumen's per sq ft is for flowering though.

Is this going to be your grow journals thread? if not when you make one post the url to your thread here so i can subscribe to it

My box is pretty tight with light, the plants will have light in between and over head ,

I guess before i start my veg ill need to white out the box with paint thanks for the tips.( save me from yellow tips before they come!!)

LimitedTimer said:

My box is pretty tight with light, the plants will have light in between and over head ,

I guess before i start my veg ill need to white out the box with paint thanks for the tips.( save me from yellow tips before they come!!)

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If its just your veg area and you have a good amount of lights I personally wouldn't worry about painting it. (flowering is a different story ). My bubblelicious veg box is just a particle board hell whole (pressed board or whatever) but my veg box for the BB is only 2x2x4 and I have 10 26w 1700 lumen so my plants are pretty assaulted by light It keeps them really compact and makes for quick new shoot growth after clones are taken.

I was planning on doing the whole grow outta the one box,we'll see how that turns out

And this will be my journal thread. Just tweeking my plans as they germinate, Pics coming in a day or 2.

my box is gloss wood, would that be better then the tinfoil covering it maybe? and my box is geting extremely hot (i dont have a gauge to know how hot but it feels like its pushing 80 already) do i need intake and extake to deal with this or just a outtake i got plenty of computer fans sitting around.

+rep man, checkin out your journal

LimitedTimer said:

I was planning on doing the whole grow outta the one box,we'll see how that turns out

And this will be my journal thread. Just tweeking my plans as they germinate, Pics coming in a day or 2.

my box is gloss wood, would that be better then the tinfoil covering it maybe? and my box is geting extremely hot (i dont have a gauge to know how hot but it feels like its pushing 80 already) do i need intake and extake to deal with this or just a outtake i got plenty of computer fans sitting around.

+rep man, checkin out your journal

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Im not sure about Glossy wood.
I did forget to mention that since you are using CFL's that you could go with tinfoil if you wanted to, yes tinfoil creates hot spots but I don't believe there would be too much to worry about with tinfoil if your using CFL's. (always better to be safe than sorry ).

I only have 1 intake fan at a top corner of my box (a pc fan) and that keeps my temps inside the box pretty low.

I would at least mount an intake fan to push fresh cool air into your box.

Thanks for your help bro subscribed to your journal too, Ladies are looking bea UUUUUUUUUUtiful.

LimitedTimer said:

Thanks for your help bro subscribed to your journal too, Ladies are looking bea UUUUUUUUUUtiful.

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lol Thank you
so are you starting out from seed?
man so we gotta wait 1 or 2 days for some veg porn? ill be watching

should be in the dirt tomorow morning ,waiting on one of them to germ fully.

First week lighting 24/0? smart idea ?

I cant get any my images to post for some reason anyone got a clue why it just trys to upload for hours.?

I personally veg under 24/0. some do 18/6 , 20/4 but for me 24/0 is what works best.

How big are your pictures? if there big the transfer probably dies or dies when resizing the picture to the correct size

Trying this again aye,,, success


prototype per say?

Seedling porn tomorow hopefully.

hey dude im scriben!

Day 4 and the seedlings still havn't popped their heads outta the soil, maybe tomorow.

I had to get REALLY creative with lighting for my first grow, the journal is in my sig. I couldn't do T12 or even damn T5. anyhow, as time went it continuously morphed and evolved. If you don't feel like reading through, all the photos from the grow are found here. You can just click through and see how I had to adjust.

Looks like it will be a fun grow to follow. sub-sub-sub-scribin'

Short planning and big bugs not going away. the plans have changed slightly.

Same lighting (4 26W CFL 6500k, 1 2700k 42w CFL,4 40watt fluro tubes
3x3x3 grow room now
silver tarp and white paint for reflection
8'' fan
Added extake for heat issues i was having and a extra fan
bought a temp/hum guage

So no more bug's and no more 96 degree room. And less space for the lighting to spread about.

seedlings never hit the bad room, so hopefully they will pop tomorow.

Now that i have a guage my temp is hovering at 80 degrees and 35% hum any way to get my humidity up to around 45% easily?